Automotive Design
Additive manufacturing with metals
Ilona Scholl looks at the development of a metal laser melting machine for the automotive industry.
A
dditive manufacturing with metals is becoming increasingly important in the automotive industry. Time and cost reductions in production are making this generative technology increasingly attractive
to the carmakers. The primary focus is on aluminium alloys which provide
the basis for lightweight automobile construction. For applications involving vehicle and engine technology, but also from other areas, Daimler AG is now consistently embracing the resource-efficient, generative metal laser melting of metals. In order to meet all future assignments, the Swabia-based
company got the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology (ILT) and the LaserCUSING specialist Concept Laser to develop a new super laser melting machine X line 1000R whose build chamber size surpasses anything that was known previously. The Fraunhofer ILT and Concept Laser created the new
high-performance LaserCUSING machine X line 1000R for fabricating series components in an XXL format. The first machine is already in operation at Daimler AG.
Pilot machine
The large machine X line 1000R boasts a superlative build chamber which, according to Frank Herzog, managing director of Concept Laser, has impressive dimensions. The X line 1000R was developed for the tool-less manufacturing of large functional components and technical prototypes with material properties which are identical throughout the range.
The centrepiece of the X line 1000R consists of a high- power laser in the kilowatt range which enables an increase in productivity of up to a factor of 10 compared with standard laser fusing machines available on the market. The machine was specifically configured to cater
for Daimler AG’s special requirements for automobile applications. The aim of Daimler AG was to replace costly sand-casting and die-casting applications in early phases of development. In addition, the LaserCUSING process will in future offer the possibility of generating lightweight structures with a high level of rigidity which will permit weight-optimised geometries, with almost no restrictions on the design, but at present cannot be manufactured in this way with the manufacturing techniques which are available today. The project partners got together as part of the ‘Alu
generative research and development project (German Ministry of Education and Research)’. The Fraunhofer ILT examined, together with different partners from industry, including Daimler AG, the laser fusing technology for production applications involving aluminium components. The industrial use for fabricating production components
was previously, mainly as a result of the materials and costs, restricted to smaller components or dental and medical technology. As part of the project, the application potential for
manufacturing aluminium components for other areas of industry was examined. The well-known characteristics of the production process include conservation of resources, independence from mould-making, freedom of geometry, as well as the speed of construction and development. These were appraised at Daimler as a fundamentally new way of looking at manufacturing options with the aim of creating innovative and environmentally friendly products. From the point of view of the development partners, these also provided a solid basis for tackling the pressure of costs in production and safeguarding Germany’s long-term future as a place for high-tech manufacturing.
Automotive construction
The demands of Daimler AG as an industrial partner were a significant increase in the build-up rates, an improvement in the quality of the surface finish, reproducibility and reliability of the machine as a result of appropriate process monitoring, as well as the qualification of further aluminium series alloys for a range of applications. The Fraunhofer ILT, which has been one of the leading
Fig. 1. The launch of the machine Xline 1000R in December 2012 on the trade show Euromold in Frankfurt.
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research institutions in the field of laser melting for over 15 years, supplied its know-how for designing the kW laser beam source and the matching optical lens system in order to ensure the desired build-up rates of different aluminium alloys. In
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